66 New Top Ten

As Greyson continued meditating, the fights continued. However, the audience was clearly no longer interested and started to zone out. What battle could follow up Aidan and Greyson's battle? All of the opponents were sub-par in comparison and none of them made the other nine stagemasters break a sweat. After around 30 minutes or so, Greyson opened his eyes and exited his meditation. His fatigue completely faded away and he felt extremely refreshed. Glancing over the other battles, he just sighed thinking that the first part of the tournament was probably going to end soon. People had even started leaving thinking that the first part of the competition was over. The top ten battling each other would not happen until the next day. He was slightly disappointed that no one had decided to battle with him yet. Thinking back to his earlier battle, he did admit he had come off a lot more aggressive than he wished. Maybe his show of power made any potential opponents in the audience feel discouraged from trying.

Right when the twilight sky appeared as the sun began to set, Morninghand had announced that the competition was over.

"The top ten for this year's students are the remaining ten stagemasters." He spoke towards the audience. Then, turning towards the stages, "First off, congratulations to you all. I believe that you have easily proven your prowess and talent today. As the top ten you will all receive separate awards which the academy thinks will best benefit you. Later on, you will all receive them from your masters. Prepare yourselves for fighting tomorrow, the last part of the competition continues so that you will all have your ranking even within the top ten. I expect that you all were waiting for this part the most." Once he spoke the last part, he smiled knowingly as he saw all the young stagemasters look at each other with great battle intent. Only Natalia stood on stage yawning to herself looking completely bored. Morninghand looked over with his lip twitching before letting out a long sigh lamenting the challenges of his dear friend and Natalia's father, Castor Ivywood.

"Well, anyways, this old man will stop talking now and let you all get back to rest early. I look forward to the battles tomorrow!" He waved his hands to dismiss them. They all bowed slightly in response before walking off in different directions. Greyson looked around and spotted Ronan and Lucius waiting for him in their same seats from earlier.

"Well, how's that for an entrance. Was it impressive enough?" Walking over laughing, Greyson was quick to joke about his success.

"Impressive, very impressive. No matter what, you guys are at the same level so it is a little shocking to see you beat him so easily." Ronan gave him an honest thumbs up.

"Just a battle between two weaker magicians, only you would think it's impressive." Lucius, on the other hand, just rolled his eyes. Greyson just ignored Lucius and thanked Ronan. He was already used to this cat's inability to compliment people other than himself.

"We should get back and quickly eat dinner before resting. I just want to quickly sleep, so tomorrow comes even faster."

"Hahaha, well I'll leave you guys to it, then. I have to get back to my place as well and finish some of my current painting. Congrats again, Grey. I'll come cheer you on again tomorrow!" Ronan split off from them in the direction of his dorm room waving goodbye.

"Mm, okay! See you later!" After waving goodbye, Greyson quickly leaped up onto the rooftops and swiftly made his way back to Elder Sweetbow's manor. Whistling a soft tune to himself, Greyson walked happily through the front gate. However, the minute he walked through his happy moment was broken apart by familiar shouting.

"Brat! Look at you! I knew you would shock everyone at the competition. Bahahaha! All those old fogies got worked up and ran to me asking who this young genius was and where I was hiding him all this time. You really gave your master face today! Well, it's to be expected I guess, I mean look at who your wise teacher is!" Sweetbow shouted animatedly, the pride in his expression obvious to all.

"Master, how many times have I told you? I'm not deaf, you'll blow my eardrums out with all your shouting." Sighing to himself, Greyson felt helpless against this oddball master of his while using his fingers to block his ears.

"Is that the issue? You should first stop this egomaniac from his delusions. You were born with your talent, if anything he only nudged you in the correct direction. Taking all the credit as if he was the one who gave birth to you and gave you your natural born ability. Hmph, just look at his head. It will soon be too big for his body to hold." Lucius scathing tongue took no breaks as he mercilessly cut down the elder's happiness.

"You! Stupid animal! What do you know?! Talent is one thing, but the knowledge to efficiently use that talent is another. Without me, Greyson would still be floundering around with trying to figure out how to use two elements simultaneously with ease." His elation smashed to pieces suddenly, Sweetbow's face turned red in indignation.

"Lu, I can't back you up on this one. Master has given me a lot, I accredit a lot of my strength to him." Greyson lightly scolded.

"Exactly! If anything, you're the most useless one here. You just laze around all day eating my food and drinking my water. Nothing but a wasteful bum." Ecstatic to see his disciple defending him, Sweetbow's anger dissipated a lot allowing him to finally think of a clever comeback. All this time, he was always losing the verbal battles with this cat.

"..." Lucius opened his mouth to refute, but suddenly realized it was true. He just napped all day while absorbing mana in this nice environment.

"Hah! Cat got your tongue? Have you finally seen the error of your ways, shameless freeloader?" Sweetbow felt endless pleasure seeing his enemy speechless. Lucius just snorted before running off inside. Seeing their interaction, Greyson just shrugged his shoulders. At least his teacher had won for once, before it was always his master running off in a fury after not being able to think of something to say. Following after his happily chuckling teacher, he finally made it back to his room before walking out to take a nice hot bath. Eyes flickering to blue, he quickly summoned water to fill up the tub. Before placing his hand on the surface of the water and heating it up with his fire magic. Seeing the steam rise up, he swiftly got undressed before hopping in.

"Ahhh... this is great. Magic makes some things so convenient." Taking in the comfort of the hot water, Greyson reflected back to when he was younger. In order to take a bath, they would have to collect water from the river and heat it up in order to bathe so they would not wash themselves as often since it was too much work. Snow Country was cold year-round, so they were never able to bathe directly in the river since it was frozen over.

Scrubbing himself clean after some amount of relaxing, Greyson dried off quickly using his wind magic. Putting on some comfortable night wear, he made a large leap into his bed covers. Breathing in the familiar scent of his blankets, he felt his body unwinding. Coming back after a long day, lying in bed after a hot bath was always the best feeling out there. Before he could even turn off the light stones in his room, his eyes drooped as a sudden wave of exhaustion came over him. In next to no time at all, he was deeply asleep. Lucius followed in after a little while and saw Greyson passed out on his bed. Shaking his head, he bit onto the blankets and tucked Greyson in before switching off the light stones.

"What would you do without me?" He quietly grumbled before laying down as well and shutting his eyes.

...

Morning came in what felt like an instant. The bright sunlight had lit up the room and Greyson sprung up in excitement. A good night's rest left him invigorated for today's battles. Bursting out of his room, he ran off without notifying his master towards the battle stages. Once he arrived, he stopped in surprise as the amount of people in the audience looked as if it doubled and the stadium had been changed. Yesterday the audience seating was smaller and there were ten battle stages, however, today there were only two stages and the seating for the viewers expanded. Ronan had told him before that the entire stadium was on top of a spacial array that allowed the user to change out parts for others in the space underneath, however, to actually see it happen was shocking. Both the stages were larger than the ten other stages making them look much grander.

Looking around, he spotted Ronan in the audience, but this time he did not walk over. Earlier on, he had spotted ten chairs beneath the stages on the ground floor that had obvious meaning. Even without being told he knew that it was for the top ten contestants to sit on awaiting the matches. When he had arrived over at the seat, a couple of the others had arrived. Unsurprisingly, the upright and ever responsible Leopold was already there. Tristian and Ignis had arrived as well. Noticing the approaching figure, the both of them had looked over with interest obvious in their eyes. Nodding in greeting to them, Greyson moved to sit next to Leopold.

"It seems we will finally be able to fight again today. Five years is a long time. I'm confident that you have probably improved significantly." Opening his eyes, Leopold looked over at the familiar young half-elf with fighting intent almost bursting out.

"Well, my improvement is not bad. I'm looking forward to testing myself against you." Greyson let out a smile while still looking ahead. Leopold gave him one last look before turning his head back and closing his eyes to meditate once more. Since Greyson was not really close with any of the others, he decided to copy Leo and started to meditate.

During this time, more and more people filtered into the stadium and filled the empty seats. The other top ten arrived all taking random seats. Feeling an oddly intense stare, Greyson cracked open an eye to take a look over at the source. What met his gaze were beautiful golden eyes paired with chestnut brown hair. Thinking to himself, Greyson tried to figure out who the personwas before he suddenly thought of a name. Luca, Luca Argentum. He had seen his photo before in that book he bought. The heat in Luca's eyes made Greyson rather uncomfortable but he wrote it off and stopped paying attention. Closing himself off once more, he continued meditating.

Right before the competition would start up again, he caught a whiff of a strong rose scent waft over to him. Furrowing his brows, he stopped meditating and looked over to the seat next to him. Seeing the pink eyes and light green hair, he recognized her as Ezra Seirina. She noticed him glancing over and winked before giggling. Awkwardly smiling back, he nodded his head in greeting before looking straight ahead. Last to arrive was a yawning Natalia looking bored as usual. Glancing over the seats, her eyes stopped at Ezra who was sitting next to Greyson. Frowning slightly, she quickly walked over as the sleep left her eyes. Smiling sweetly, she looked completely like a innocent young girl.

"Thanks for saving my seat, Big Sister Ezra, you can move over to the other empty seat now." Her voice chimed out.

"Hohoho, Natty what words are these? I don't remember saving this seat for you. The seat next to Leo over there is still open for you." Ezra laughed gently.

"I want that seat. So, move it, prostitute! The overwhelming scent of your perfume sickens me." Her smile disappearing in a second, Natalia enunciated each sharp word clearly.

"Aw, Natty, just because you're young doesn't mean you need to feel inferior towards big sister's developed body. Your time will come, you are still growing." Venom dripping from each word, Ezra purposely glanced over Natalia.

"Hmph! Me? Inferior to you? You just use your looks to beguile your opponents and poison them. Any good-looking living thing could do the same. When your power is actually weak, you should feel ashamed sitting in the presence of true talented magicians. I'm surprised you have the face to sit up here with the rest of those who truly belong in the top ten." Not losing an inch, Natalia quickly answered back with her own harsh words.

Finally losing the nonchalant expression, Ezra's eyes narrowed dangerously as she glared towards Natalia while the mana around her began to rise.

"Enough! Would it kill the both of you to just stop fighting for once? It's never-ending." Coming in at just the right time, Morninghand quickly called the verbal warring to a halt. Turning their heads towards him, both girls glared daggers at the interrupter.

"Eh... I was just mentioning. We need to get the competition started. If you guys want to fight, fight up there." Slightly intimidated by the sharp glares, Morninghand fell into a softer tone. Hearing his words, both of the girls lightened up with bright eyes as they thought of this option.

"Just you wait!" They both spoke up at the same time. Disgust showed in their eyes at the feeling of speaking the same words as the other, before they both just snorted and turned their heads. Natalia stepped down and plopped down on the seat next to Leopold. The other boys just looked in other directions pretending to not have witnessed a thing. Greyson also felt speechless at the aggression between the two girls. In his eyes, their personalities actually matched up very well. He wondered if there was some sort of back story he was unaware of...